Before paying for this mystery upgrade, I tried the vendor's . It had no effect. So I gave the upgrade a try. This did give me access to 5 new scenes, as promised, but otherwise offered no newer version of the software. The problem with random selection remained. I have still not resolved this issue.

If like me, you'd given up on and forgotten about your old screensavers, now is a good time to revisit them. They may now work, or at least mostly work, in 10.6.

Of course, many people have given up on screensavers altogether, having their Macs shift directly to display sleep (or even computer sleep) after a period of inactivity -- in order to save energy. I haven't gone quite that far yet. My screensaver kicks in after 10 minutes of idle time. Display sleep takes over after another 10 minutes. This way, I get to enjoy the screensaver for a few minutes before the screen goes dark.